A Home for a Swan
by Rottenspark
Summary: AU: After growing up without a father, 17-year-old Emma finds out he isn't a deadbeat, but the sheriff of a small town in Maine. And he never knew she existed. What happens when David adopts Emma, whose had a rough start? Also, Regina is the class president from hell.
1. Chapter 1

**Sup, readers? This is my first OUAT fanfic. Hope it's everything you dreamed it would be when you clicked.**

**AU: After growing up without a father, 17-year-old Emma finds out he isn't a deadbeat, but the sheriff of a small town in Maine. And he never knew she existed. What happens when David adopts Emma, whose had a hell of a rough start? Also, Regina is the class president from hell. **

**NOTE: MARY MARGARET IS NOT EMMA'S MOTHER IN THIS FIC. KAY?**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Once Upon A Time and am not in any way profiting from this fic, unless you count the creepy pleasure it gives me to write it.**

Chapter 1

Making it through the first day of school. It was bad enough for normal kids.

For Emma Swan, there were about a million things she'd rather do, and most of them involved being impaled by sharp objects.

"Emma! You're going to miss the bus!" her father called.

"I'm not taking the bus," Emma mumbled.

She was still in bed. Her hair: possibly harboring live creatures. She had no idea what to wear, and frankly didn't really care.

"Emma_._" Her father's head popped through her door. "What are you doing? School starts in twenty minutes."

"I'm sick."

He looked at her with concern. It was weird, having a father. Emma was still getting used to it.

"Okay, I'm not sick," she said.

He came into the room, brow crumbling. He was so…_genuine. _Emma wasn't used to that, either.

He wore his brown and tan sheriff's uniform, the gold star glistening on his chest.

"Look, I get it," he said, lowering himself onto Emma's beanbag. (It was one of the few items Emma had taken with her from her mother's house.) "Who _wants_ to start at a new school?"

"Masochists. Psychos."

David's eyes widened. She and David did have the same eyes: round and blue as Caribbean beach water. They'd been what convinced Emma the social worker wasn't lying about her being his daughter.

"I know it's hard," he said.

"I don't want to go."

He stood, knees crackling. He wasn't that old: 36, with a full head of blond hair (also like Emma's). He and Emma's mother had apparently sparked her into existence when they were fresh out high school, shortly before Emma's pregnant mother took off.

The fact that he had a daughter had been as much of a shock to him as he was to her: a father who wanted her.

They were still getting used to each other.

"Look," he said, "I'm not going to make you go. I don't even know what that would look like."

Emma pulled herself up onto her elbows. "So what are you going to do?"

"Leave," he said, "and trust that you'll go on your own."

He walked out of the room. Moments later, Emma heard the garage door shut behind his cruiser.

That was, Emma realized, the exact same thing her mother would have done, but for entirely different reasons.

* * *

In the end, there was no avoiding it. She had to go to school.

Though she _had_ looked up the truancy laws for the state of Maine, and technically a seventeen-year-old wasn't legally required. But what else would she do with herself? Become a waitress?

So, school.

She stood in front of her closet, trying to decide on an outfit that would best advertise her unfriendliness. There was her black tank top with the metal spikes on the shoulders—but maybe that kind of thing wasn't allowed here. Storybrooke, Maine, wasn't like Philadelphia, where Emma had come from. Storybrooke was tiny—like, "twenty seniors in the graduating class" tiny. A place like that might micromanage the school dress code.

Why was she thinking so hard about this, anyway?

She wound up in a pair of baggy jean shorts and a plain black T-shirt. She was going for, "I don't give a shit." She complemented this look with her hair, which she left scraggly and unkempt.

She wasn't looking to make a life here in Storybrooke, just to survive until she turned eighteen, when she could leave.

She liked David and all, but… scratch that. She didn't like him. No amount of apologizing or good parenting could make up for seventeen years of abandonment.

Not that he'd even known she existed.

But it was the principal of the thing. Emma had spent too many birthdays and Christmases wondering what was so wrong with her that her father didn't _want _her.

"I would have wanted you," he'd told her with tears in his eyes when they met, his hands clutching both her shoulders. "If I'd known about you, I would have wanted you."

But it was the principal of the thing.

Whatever, Emma was late, and there wasn't time for this kind of angst this morning.

She grabbed her ratty backpack—another thing that had made it through the detention center, the group home, and the move to Storybrooke—and flew down the steps, swallowing a Pop Tart on her way out the door.

One goal for this year: Stay out of trouble. She'd vowed it before, but she meant it this time.

_I will not wind up in handcuffs._

* * *

The irony wasn't lost on Emma that her father was the sheriff.

When the social worker had told her, she'd laughed for a good twenty minutes. She—thief, smoker, topic of countless meetings between teachers—was the daughter of a man who was basically a mascot of good behavior.

Emma concluded that she took after her mother. Which she did.

Technically, Emma had only been arrested twice. The first time, she was fifteen, caught with a can of spray paint at three in the morning. She'd gotten off with a warning.

The second time, a year ago, was worse.

Much worse.

It wasn't necessarily that Emma was caught stealing. She'd been stealing for months, and had expected to be caught at some point. You couldn't get lucky forever, right?

It was more what the arrest had led to: her mother getting a call from the police, then doing what any mother would do, getting in the car and speeding to the police station. Except Emma's mother wasn't like other mothers. Emma's mother had a blood alcohol level three times the legal limit and crashed into a fire hydrant. And she was fine, thank God, but it was the second time she'd been caught driving drunk, and what started out as just Emma being in trouble turned into her mother being in trouble, too.

And Emma didn't want to tell the man who questioned her how often her mother drank, because the truth was it was all the time, for as long as Emma could remember, sometimes a lot, sometimes less, once a whole year sober, a happy and beautiful year when Emma was eight, but her mother had slipped back into it eventually, inevitably, the way you could only outrun the Girard Avenue trolley for so long before you got tired and it caught up to you. And it always caught up to her mother. Every single time, no matter how many promises she made.

Emma's mother was sentenced to a year in prison. In the courtroom, she'd wept, while Emma sat there feeling like she was watching a movie and not her life.

Emma was let off with another warning. (All she'd been caught with was a used CD, not earrings or a necklace or any of the other expensive things she'd taken in the past.) Plus, her behavior had suddenly become "a cry for help." Emma wasn't sure if that was true, but she was glad she didn't have to go back to the detention center, where there was crying every night and the food looked like it might go creeping off your tray.

She'd been sitting in a small room with ponies on the wallpaper when the social worker told her they'd found her father. At that point, she'd been living in a group home for three months, because where else could she go? Her mother was all Emma had ever had. No father, no grandparents, no aunts or uncles. Just the two of them, for as long as Emma could remember.

"He lives in a small town in Maine," the social worker had told her, the lines in her forward pressing downwards. "He's the sheriff."

And Emma had laughed, laughed so hard she might have been crying.

Her mother had told her that her father was a nobody.

* * *

She'd been at David's a month now, and he'd pretty much left her alone.

Seventeen-year-old daughters didn't come with instruction manuals—let alone daughters you'd just found out about—so it seemed to Emma like he was just observing her, learning her ways. Maybe later, he'd try to "parent." For now, she pretended not to notice when he watched her pour her cornflakes, or walk from the living room to the fridge, or turn the page of a book. When she caught him looking, he'd clear his throat and look away quickly, but he wasn't fooling anyone.

They talked a little, but nothing too deep. He seemed scared to ask how her life had been.

"You can talk to me, you know," was the most he'd ventured, one night as they chewed their spaghetti.

Emma grunted. The last thing she wanted to do was talk to him. She was still angry at him.

And he was…good. A good man. Not just the sheriff, but the Little League coach, and the Santa in each year's Christmas pageant. He paid his bills on time, and recycled, and kept birdfeeders.

Emma didn't want him to know that when she lived with her mother, sometimes the heating would go off, and Emma would spend a few nights curled up in four or five blankets. Or that Emma had been cooking dinner since she was twelve. Or that she'd found her mother passed out on the kitchen floor more times than she could count.

Emma didn't want the good man who was her father to know how badly she'd grown up, because what if that made her not good enough for him?

And he would assume things. He would assume her childhood had been all bad, when some of it had been really, really good. Like the times she and her mother would go to the diner at eleven at night and get cherry Cokes and pie. And the way her mother saved every single one of her sloppy paintings from kindergarten, saved them in a big yellow folder no matter how many times they moved houses. Or the way Emma could talk to her mother about anything—literally anything.

As long as her mother wasn't drinking. Or even when she was drinking, but was keeping it under control.

Emma wouldn't talk to David. Couldn't. It was too late, and too complicated, and she just wanted to start over. Move across the country and start a brand new life, free of all of it.

* * *

She had to run to get to Storybrooke High on time, which was her own fault for lying in bed so late.

It wasn't just starting at a new school she was dreading. It was…school in general. Emma and school didn't really mix.

It wasn't that she was stupid. At least, she didn't think she was stupid.

It was more the setup of the whole thing: sitting in a classroom while someone talks at you and being expected to remember what they said. Emma had always done better with hands-on stuff: fixing things, navigating places, or figuring out the best way to string a model airplane from the ceiling. School wasn't made for people with brains like hers, so it was a kind of torture, something she got through and didn't care much about.

Or a place to get in trouble.

To say that Emma had a big mouth was like calling flesh-eating bacteria kind of unpleasant. Emma had a _huge _mouth, her ability to provoke people—teachers, other students, hall monitors, guidance counselors—practically historic. She just…said what was on her mind, and what was on her mind usually didn't please people.

She couldn't help it if no one liked to hear the truth.

Sometimes Emma thought about why she had "no filter"—the phrase her social worker had used in her file, which Emma had snatched and read when no one was looking—and Emma had concluded she'd had to lie and make excuses for her mother so many times, she just couldn't handle any other fakeness.

So she spent a lot of time in detention. And wasn't the best at getting along with other girls. And spent a lot of time in detention.

The school wasn't more than a half a mile away from David's house, but Emma still got there huffing and puffing. Her month of sitting around in David's house hadn't done much for her fitness, and she resolved to make a point of exercising more.

Storybrooke High was a brick building about the size of a box of crayons, with a bronze bell actually donging to call everyone inside. Emma caught her breath on the sidewalk, marveling at how quaint it all was: the trimmed green lawns, the big windows, the brick pathway leading to the door.

It all made her kind of sick.

Wiping her forehead with the back of her hand, she headed inside. She'd come here the week before to get all the forms signed, so she knew her way around, or at least knew how to get to her classroom. There was only one class per grade, and they would stay in the same room all day long while the teachers moved around. Emma couldn't think of a better way to go completely insane.

Outside the classroom, in a hallway with cheery yellow walls, Emma smoothed her hair and rubbed at the circles under her eyes. It wasn't that she cared what these people thought. It was just…she could suddenly hear her mother's voice in her head, telling her how important first impressions were.

"You going in?" came a voice.

Emma jumped. A guy had appeared behind her. A hot guy. He had brown hair that fell in waves across his forehead and eyes green as spring grass.

"You scared the shit out of me," Emma said, walking into the room.

Naturally, everyone looked up and stared at her. Emma felt color rise to her cheeks before she shuffled to the back of the room and dropped into a chair. There was some whispering, which Emma tried to ignore. At least she hadn't been late. Their homeroom teacher hadn't even arrived yet.

"You must be Emma."

Emma looked up. The girl standing in front of her looked like she was running for president—of the country. She wore a sleek black dress and pearls around her neck, and her black hair was pulled into what looked like a painfully tight bun.

"Yeah," Emma said, trying to convey, in one sound, how much she wanted to be left alone.

"I'm Regina," said the girl, holding out her hand.

Emma sneezed into her own palms.

"Well," Regina said, pulling her hand back.

"Is there something you want?" Emma said.

The girl looked a little indignant. "Just to introduce myself. I'm Regina—

"You said that."

"I'm the senior class president."

"You want a prize?"

Regina stared at Emma for a few seconds. "Is there a reason you're being so rude to me?"

Emma sighed. _Because I want you to go away._

Still, the girl was just trying to be nice.

"Sorry," Emma said. "Not a morning person. Thanks for the…introduction."

Emma expected her to leave, but the girl continued to stand there, running her eyes over Emma's outfit and frowning like she wasn't a fan.

"You want to take a picture or something?" Emma said.

Regina pursed her lips. "No, thank you."

"You, uh, have someplace to be, then?"

"I'm allowed to stand wherever I want to stand."

"There a reason that special place is in right front of my desk?"

Regina scowled again. "You have a bad attitude."

"Yeah, well, you're dressed like Career Barbie."

There was some giggling from the class, but Regina shot looks all around, and the room went silent.

"It was nice meeting you, Emma."

She gave Emma the most mirthless smile the world had ever seen before finally walking away and sitting down on the far side of the room.

"Wish I could say the same," Emma mumbled.

How was it she'd managed to get on someone's bad side in five minutes flat?

"Hey, new girl," came a hiss.

Emma ignored whoever it was.

"New girl. _Hey_."

Emma turned, temper flaring. It was a girl with long, chestnut hair and lots of eye makeup. Her skirt looked like the kind of thing you wear straight to detention.

"_What_?" Emma said, keeping her voice low. She had a feeling most of the class was listening.

"I'm Ruby."

Emma just stared at her.

"Rumor has it you're kind of a badass. Did time in juvie. Is it true?"

"There's a fair chance that's none of your business," Emma said through her teeth.

The girl looked more excited than put off. "Listen, you're going to need a friend here. What do you say?"

"Are you proposing to me or something?"

"Just that we be friends. Unless, wait, are you gay?"

"_No_," Emma said.

"Couldn't tell. You're kind of butch. Too bad." She threw a lock of hair over her shoulder. "Still. Friendship. You're thinking yes?"

"_No,_" Emma said again.

"Why not?"

Emma sighed. "Look, you seem nice. But I'm not looking to make friends here."

"All right," Ruby said, facing forward again. "Your loss."

"Thank you," Emma breathed.

Before long, the teacher came in and started taking attendance. Emma sunk down into her chair and shut her eyes.

The day passed painfully. School was school, which in other words meant boring. Not only would the class stay in the same room all day, they would have same schedule every day, too. Math first (because who didn't want to recite the quadratic equation 20 minutes after you'd rolled out of bed?) followed by social studies, Spanish, lunch, biology, gym, and English. Everyone took a few minutes to stand and stretch in between each class, but other than that, there was nothing to break up the monotony.

The best part (read: the worst part) was that every teacher insisted on commenting that Emma was new and "welcoming her" by making her say a little something about herself. A "fun fact," the social studies teacher called it. (This was the man who made her stand up in front of the class.)

"My dad's the sheriff," Emma told everyone for the third time, before walking back to her seat.

By lunchtime, Emma was about ready to blow, so instead of going to the cafeteria to sample what would undoubtedly turn out to be scary school food, she wandered around looking for an unmonitored exit and snuck out the first one she found.

The door shut with a thud behind her, and Emma exhaled. The cigarette was lit and between her lips in half a second.

"My dad calls them Idiot Sticks."

Emma about jumped out of her skin. Next to her, one foot kicked back against the brick wall, was the guy who'd scared her before homeroom. He wore a green T-shirt and leather hiking shoes, as if he wasn't spending the whole day trapped in a single room.

"What's a person got to do around here for some solitude?" Emma said.

"Sorry, didn't mean to barge in on your alone time," he said. "Oh wait, _you _barged in on _mine._"

Emma almost laughed. Almost. "Whatever. Can we just…share this moment in silence?"

The guy shrugged. "Whatever."

Emma drew in a long breath, liking the way the cigarette smoke felt hot in her chest. Yes, it was deadly. She knew that. But some part of her also knew she was drawn to self-destruction.

"Seriously though," said the guy. "Those'll kill you."

"What happened to silence?"

"I just…wouldn't be able to live with myself. Ten years down the road, you get lung cancer. I'd think back to this moment and hate myself for not telling you to stop."

"Well, now you've told me." Emma drew another inhale. "Let your conscience be clear."

"Shame," the guy said.

Emma tried let the word sit there, but curiosity got the best of her. "_What's _a shame?"

"That a girl so hot would be so antisocial."

"Don't try to flatter me."

"That was flattery to you? What kind of guys have you been hanging around?"

"_None_," Emma said.

"Oh," he said. "You're gay."

"For Pete's sake, _no._"

"Then you wouldn't be opposed to, say, hanging out with me this weekend?"

Emma threw down her cigarette and ground it under her foot. "Can't you just leave me alone?"

He seemed not to hear her. "A smoker and a litterer. Your karma must be pretty devastating."

"Yeah, it bites me in the ass by sending me people like you_._"

"I'm Graham," he said.

"Emma."

And then they were kissing.

It wasn't something Emma exactly decided. It just kind of happened, because she liked a guy she could spar with, and he was hot, and she'd spent the last three weeks lonely as hell.

He'd backed her into the wall when the door opened.

"_Graham_?"

He pulled away from Emma all at once. "Regina."

* * *

So within about three seconds, it was clear to Emma that Regina and Graham had history, and what unfriendliness Emma had stoked between herself and the class president this morning had just gone from smoldering embers to wildfire.

The girl gave Emma a look that might actually kill a lower life form before she went barreling back inside.

"Regina, wait!" Graham said, going after her.

And just like that, Emma was alone, her cigarette smoking in the grass and her shoulder still tingling from when Graham had gripped it.

"Not good," Emma said, shaking her head. "Not good, not good."

She didn't like Graham. After all, they barely knew each other. So she didn't really care that he'd abandoned her and gone running after Regina.

It was more like, "I've managed to lodge myself in boy drama and it hasn't even been a full day."

Why couldn't she exist peacefully anywhere she went?

She smoked another cigarette, wondering what to do now. There were still 25 minutes left in the lunch period. Her stomach let out a growl. That Pop Tart she'd eaten was long digested.

Maybe she'd go get something to eat, after all.

When she entered the cafeteria, every eye in the room turned to her. She felt her face burn red. As fast as she could, she walked to the counter, grabbed a Rice Krispy Treat, and paid for it with the crumbled bills David had left out for her.

"Emma!" came a voice over the noise of the crowd.

It was that girl again, Ruby, motioning for Emma to come sit at her table. Emma looked around. There didn't seem to be any other seats.

Not knowing what else to do, Emma walked over and lowered herself into the seat opposite Ruby.

The girl was giving Emma an amazed look.

"We heard," Ruby said.

The girl next to her nodded enthusiastically. Unlike Ruby, with her short skirt and deep-diving collar, the girl beside her wore a plaid shirt buttoned almost to her chin, and her brown hair was tucked neatly behind her ears.

The two were dating. It was immediately clear, for reasons Emma couldn't exactly quantify. She wondered how they managed that, given their clearly divergent personalities.

"Heard…what?" Emma said, unwrapping her Rice Krispy.

"You and Graham," Ruby said.

Emma almost dropped her food. "That literally just happened."

Ruby grinned. "Welcome to Storybrooke, turning secrets to gossip since 1856." She motioned to the other girl. "This is Belle."

"Hey," Belle said, turning slightly pink.

"Hey," Emma didn't have time for introductions. "How did you know about…what happened?"

"They came in here screaming at each other," Belle said. "He said, 'It didn't mean anything.' We connected the dots from there."

"Wait," Emma said. "You got that something happened between meand Graham from, 'It didn't mean anything'?"

"Well, no one else would dare to _do _anything with Graham," Ruby said.

"People don't mess with Regina," Belle said. "So it had to be you."

"Everyone else would know better," Ruby said.

"_Know better_?" Emma chewed on the idea as she chewed her food. "The hell do you mean by that?"

Both lowered their eyes and said nothing.

"Is there something about Regina you need to share with me?" Emma said.

"It's not something we can really…talk about," Ruby said.

"I don't get it," Emma said.

"She's _dangerous_," Belle burst, turning a deep shade of pink.

Some of the people from neighboring tables looked over.

"Like…she's a bitch?" Emma said.

"No," Ruby said in a low voice. "I mean, that's true. But that's not why she's—

"Can I speak with you?" came a voice from behind Ruby, who turned white. "Emma?"

Regina had come out of nowhere.

She looked completely calm, not a hair out of place.

"Kay," Emma said.

"_Alone_," Regina said.

Emma rose and followed her out of the cafeteria. If Emma had a nickel for every person staring and whispering, she could have afforded several bus tickets back to Philly.

"We haven't gotten off to a very good start, have we?" Regina said once they were outside the doors.

Standing face to face, Emma was able to size Regina up better than she had in class. There was the sleek black dress, which looked like something you wore if you were being featured in Professional Women Under 40, not having a plain old day in high school. She was hot, Emma noted, but there was something severe about her (maybe her aggressively plucked eyebrows). And her teeth were the kind of white you saw when you died.

Emma thought about how Belle had blurted, "She's _dangerous_._"_

Emma could imagine Regina being bitchy, or controlling, or overachieving, but dangerous? Really?

"I guess we haven't," Emma said, trying to match Regina's smile with one that was as sickeningly sweet.

"Why don't we start over?" Regina held out her hand.

Emma wiped hers on her shorts. "Sorry. Rice Krispy treat."

Regina cleared her throat and pulled her hand away.

"About…me and Graham," Regina said. "Things are a little complicated between us."

"Um," Emma said. "I don't mean to…overstep my bounds, but things didn't seem that complicated."

"What are you implying?"

"He's the one that started kissing _me_. Guys in relationships tend not to do that."

Emma had only ever read the word "snarl" in books, but in that moment, it applied to Regina.

"Listen, _Emma_," Regina said. "If I tell you things are complicated between Graham and me, then _they are complicated._"

Emma almost laughed. "Ooooo-kay."

"You know, I don't like you."

"That would be mutual."

"Stay away from Graham."

Now Emma did laugh. "Or what? What exactly are you going to do to me?"

Regina closed her mouth into a tight line. "Destroy you."

With that, she walked away, shoes clicking down the silent hallway.

Emma wondered what the hell she'd meant by that.

And how, oh how, she'd gotten herself ensnared in drama on literally the first day.

And, again, _destroy_?

Emma didn't think you could destroy something that was already broken.

* * *

The second half of the day passed uneventfully, thank goodness, since the first half had contained enough drama to last a month.

Biology was your usual microscope fiasco, with everyone swabbing cells from their cheeks and taking notes on what they saw. Gym was terrible—of course—but Emma was able to claim a position in the outfield and just stand there in a daze, trying not to get too sunburned. English, well, there was bound to be the proverbial cherry on top of the miserable day. The teacher, a young woman who looked like she'd maybe been Mary Poppins in a past life, told them they'd be reading ten novels that year.

"_Ten_?" Emma couldn't help crying.

Everyone turned to look at her. Everyone except Regina, of course, who kept her frown forward. And Graham, who hadn't glanced at Emma since lunch.

The teacher, whose name was Miss Blanchard, and who was wearing a red cardigan made to look like a ladybug, said, "Do you have a problem with that, Miss…?"

"Swan," Emma said, pulling her arms over her chest. "Emma Swan. And yes, I do."

The words came out before Emma could stop them. Here it comes, Emma thought. The detention. _I'm going to get detention on the first day. _

Instead of looking angry, Miss Blanchard raised her eyebrows and said, "Well, what is it?"

"What is what?" Emma said.

"Your problem."

The classroom was absolutely silent. For once, words didn't come rushing out of Emma's mouth. She'd never been _asked _to be honest before, especially not by a teacher.

"Ten seems like an awful lot of books to me," she said finally.

"Does anyone agree with Emma?" Miss Blanchard said.

Everyone stared at the teacher, probably wondering if this was some kind of trick. She didn't seem the type to lure students into trouble, though. She looked…completely harmless. She couldn't have been more than 28 or 29, with skin pale as chalk dust and hair so black it seemed soaked in ink. It was cut in the pageboy style, which gave the woman an artsy, gentle look.

Emma thought for sure no one would dare raise their hand, but to her surprise, Ruby's hand went up.

"I'm sorry you both feel that way," said Miss Blanchard.

_Now comes the detention_, Emma thought.

"I don't think ten is too many," Miss Blanchard continued, "so I'm going to ask you to give it a try. However, if we're halfway through the semester and things are too overwhelming, maybe we can renegotiate."

Emma was speechless. That was the most…human…a teacher had ever been with her.

Miss Blanchard moved on to passing out the syllabus, and the class continued without drama. Emma didn't go on liking Ms. Blanchard for much longer, though. As she looked over the syllabus and saw not one, but two, Shakespeare plays, she more or less decided the woman was pure evil.

"Hey, talk to me a second," Miss Blanchard said at the end of class.

Emma was headed out the door, the last one out. She'd waited so she could leave without anyone trying to talk to her.

"Yeah?" Emma said.

The teacher sat behind her desk, hands folded. "You're new to town."

Emma stared at her blankly.

"So am I," Miss Blanchard said with a small smile.

"Really? You seemed like one of the natives."

Emma's tone had been more condescending than she intended, but Miss Blanchard just laughed.

"Pretty small town, huh?" the teacher said.

"Like, microscopic. Where are you from?"

"NYC."

"Philly," Emma said.

So they were both from the city. Emma felt momentarily understood—right before she felt incredibly weird to be chatting it up with a teacher. After school, for that matter.

"Well, I better motor," Emma said.

"Wait a minute," Miss Blanchard said. "If you ever need anything—homework help, or just to talk—I'm around. All right?"

Emma couldn't help noticing the pitiful way the woman was looking at her all of a sudden.

"What'd you read my file or something?" Emma said, feeling her face burn red.

"Excuse me?"

"You're looking at me like I'm a stray in a TV commercial. You feel bad for me."

"Emma, I don't feel bad for you."

"Look, maybe they sent out some kind of email about me, but I'm _fine. _You can quit the nice teacher act."

Miss Blanchard started to respond, but Emma was already gone.

* * *

If there was anything that made Emma angry, it was people feeling bad for her. She didn't want to be pitied. She wasn't some helpless little kid.

She did feel rotten for being such a jerk to Miss Blanchard, but the way the woman had been looking at her, with big puppy-dog eyes and a furrowed brow, had just made something in Emma snap.

She would _not_ allow herself to be pitied. Not by anyone.

She was in a bad mood that night at dinner, which David, bless his soul, seemed to have picked up on, because he speared pieces of his pork chop into his mouth in silence. Emma wasn't eating much, just pushing around her Rice-A-Roni and occasionally sighing loudly. In spite of herself, she wished her mother were here. She'd have been snorting along while Emma told her all about Regina, Class President From Hell.

She let out another long sigh.

"You okay?" David said. He'd changed out of his sheriff's uniform, and wore a tattered T-shirt that said "BOB'S FISH FRY" on the front. He only wore it three or four times a week.

"Why do you ask?" Emma said.

"Well, you're breathing like a rhinoceros."

She gave her Rice-A-Roni another push with her fork. "Sorry."

"You didn't answer my question. Are you okay?"

"Yeah," Emma said. "Fine."

"You sure?"

Part of her wanted to be herself—tell him outright that today had sucked, and that there were some seriously screwed up kids in this town, and why the hell did he have to live in the middle of nowhere, anyway?

The other part—the part that managed to be angry with him and want to be good enough for him at the same time—didn't want to tell him anything. It was amazing the way she could feel like he didn't deserve to know about her life—and fear what he would think of her if he did—all at once.

"Uh huh," she said.

"All right," he said. He chewed for a few seconds before adding, "Did you…enjoy school today?"

Emma threw him a death stare.

"Dumb question?" he said.

"Yeah."

"Was today absolutely terrible?"

And there it was: that fatherly concern, that tone in his voice that told her he just wanted, more than anything, for her to be all right.

It comforted her, but it also broke her in half.

"I'll be okay," she said.

She sure hoped it was true.

**DID YOU ENJOY WHAT HAPPENED HERE?! Let me know. Seriously. Review. What? Review.**


	2. Chapter 2

**You guys! Thanks for all the reviews/follows/favorites! That kind of stuff gets me all intoxicated on happy feels. **

**If this took long, it is because it IS long. I like to do longer chapters so I have more time to change things before I post. #perfectionism**

**But I assure you this fic is always dancing around in my head. **

**Hope you enjoy the second addition this angst fest.**

Chapter 2

Well, here it was: Emma's first F at Storybrooke High.

She'd thought for sure it was going to be geometry, but surprise surprise, she had an unexpected knack for that subject and was doing just fine. Her next guess would probably have been Spanish, but nope, she was pulling a C-.

It was, of course, English. Miss Blanchard's class.

The teacher placed the exam on Emma's desk with a seemingly genuine look of sadness. "See me after, Emma."

Emma sighed and put her head down. She couldn't help it that she had zero interest in reading a book like _Red Badge of Courage. _Two hundred pages of war drama? She just didn't see how that contributed to her becoming a productive human being.

And now she had to see Miss Blanchard after class. It'd been awkward enough between them since Emma's little outburst on the first day. Miss Blanchard had tried to talk to Emma again, but Emma had basically shut down, answering in monosyllables and staring at the floor. Eventually, the teacher had quit trying.

Across the room, Regina was giving Emma a smug look. She must've heard what Miss Blanchard said and knew Emma had failed the exam. Emma rolled her eyes. It'd been two weeks since she started at Storybrooke High, and Regina had been scowling at her since day one. Luckily, there hadn't been any more major incidents between them, but that was largely because Emma had decided to leave Graham alone.

Emma _wasn't_ into drama for the sake of drama.

Graham himself hadn't made any moves toward Emma, either, not since the day they'd kissed outside the school. In fact, he seemed to have forgotten she existed, which was kind of weird, since he'd been all over her that day.

Sometimes, Emma thought of what Belle had said about Regina: _She's dangerous. _If Emma didn't know any better, Regina had a tight enough hold on Graham to keep him from even acknowledging her. How had she accomplished that? Graham hadn't seemed like anyone's bitch that afternoon.

Though Emma did wonder what Regina's deal was, she wasn't about to go asking around. Who would she ask, anyway? She didn't have any friends here. She'd gone on ignoring Ruby and Belle, and even they'd eventually left her alone.

When Emma approached Miss Blanchard's desk after class, the teacher had that same look of sadness she'd worn earlier, with a dash of disappointment thrown in.

Emma stared at her toes.

"Did you even read the book, Emma?"

It wasn't an angry tone, just a sad one. It seemed Miss Blanchard and David had this in common: They were nice and reasonable when they ought to be angry. Emma's mother got angry with Emma, no problem. She could yell with the best of them. Emma's other teachers had no problem getting angry with her, either. The social studies teacher had issued her not one, but two detentions when he'd caught her sleeping in the back of the room.

Miss Blanchard, David: They got sad, not angry. It was something Emma did not understand.

Emma raised her eyes. "No."

Miss Blanchard let out a long sigh. "Thank you for being honest, at least."

"It's not something I can really help."

Miss Blanchard smiled, though it didn't reach her eyes. She wore a dress the color of spinach, with white flowers around the collar. "Honesty is an admirable quality."

"If that were true, I'd have saved myself a lot of detentions over the years."

"Well," Miss Blanchard said, "you _could _work on your delivery."

Emma laughed, right before the weirdness hit her. This was twice, now, that she'd caught herself enjoying a conversation with Miss Blanchard. The woman taught Shakespeare, for goodness sake.

Emma made for the door. "I should go—

"Wait a minute," Miss Blanchard said. "We still need to talk about your exam."

"Oh."

"Generally, I have to alert a parent when a student is earning a failing grade."

"Please don't." Emma couldn't bear the thought of David finding out she was already flunking.

"I'd be willing to make an exception if you did some extra credit."

"Sure. Whatever it takes. You want a book report?"

"Oh, I don't want a book report."

Miss Blanchard's expression turned mischievous, and Emma wondered what was in store for her.

"You want, like, a diorama?"

"I'd like your help. Before school. Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays."

"_Before _school?" Emma said. "School starts at eight!"

"I'll need you at 6:30, at the Storybrooke Public Library. I recently took charge of the library's book drive, and the donations are, well, a little more than I can handle on my own. You'll be helping me to sort through it all."

"But. 6:30."

"I'll make it an assignment, and if you show up for two weeks, you get an A. That should pull your grade up enough so you won't be failing."

"Miss Blanchard, there's got to be another—

"Unless you'd like me to inform the sheriff that you're failing my class."

Emma frowned. "Fine."

"Excellent." Miss Blanchard smiled wide. "I'll see you tomorrow, bright and early."

"This has got to be some kind of blackmail," Emma mumbled as she left the room.

"You should really complete my reading assignments!" Miss Blanchard called after her.

Emma emerged into the beautiful September afternoon still muttering to herself. If only she'd swallowed her pride and read _Red Badge of Courage_, she wouldn't be facing two weeks of early-morning slave labor.

She plodded down Main Street, which was quaint, both sides lined with shops with names like "Bobby's Barbershop" and "Mr. Gold Antiquities." A car passed every once in a while, but for the most part, the wide street was silent and pristine. (Except, of course, for the many clocks that chimed each hour. Storybrooke had this weird obsession with chiming clocks.) Emma longed for the bustle and noise of the city, where even if you were lonely, you were never really alone.

And Emma was lonely. She couldn't deny that. She'd hardly spoken to anyone since coming to David's house, and didn't want to admit that if she kept going like this, pretty soon she'd be batshit crazy.

Maybe that was why the diner up ahead was catching her eye. It looked like a neat place, old fashioned, with metallic trimmings and neon lights. "Granny's" was the name of it. Emma had been going straight home from school every day, but today, she thought she could use a milkshake or something.

A bell jingled when she opened the door.

"Emma!" said Ruby, who wore an apron over her short red skirt. The girl's chestnut hair, usually sleek down her back, was tied into a ponytail that swished enthusiastically.

"Oh, hey," Emma said, trying to sound happy. "You work here."

"Well, that's my Granny." She pointed to a gray-haired woman behind the counter, who was barking orders at the cook. "Can I get you a booth?"

"Uh, sure."

Ruby led her to one by the window. The place really was cool, with plush booths made of mint-green leather. Plus, the smell of hamburgers was awakening some intense hunger pangs.

Emma should really stop spending her lunch money on cigarettes.

"I'll take a hamburger," Emma said before she'd even sat down. "No, a cheeseburger."

"Woah there, tiger. Don't you want to see a menu?"

"That's okay."

"All right, then," Ruby whipped out her notepad. "You want that well done?"

"Medium well. Can you put bacon on it?"

"Hungry much?"

"I just realized I've been living on David's cooking for like a month."

Ruby smirked. "Do you mean to suggest the sheriff is a rotten cook?"

"You didn't hear it from me."

Ruby grinned, before whisking away to another booth.

Emma put her elbows on the table and her head in her hands. The diner was fairly empty, with just a few other booths occupied by elderly early birds. From a scratchy radio, old-timey music was floating through the air. Emma shut her eyes. Diners always reminded her of her mother. Emma wondered what her mother was doing right now. Sitting in a cell? Scrubbing a floor with a toothbrush?

Did she miss Emma as much as Emma missed her?

They had talked on the phone every day at first, but when Emma found out about David, she'd stopped accepting her mother's calls. How could her mother have kept David from her? He'd never been a "nobody," as her mother had insisted, coldly, every time Emma had asked_. _

Was her mother scared Emma would like David better—and leave her?

Emma would never have done that. At least, she was pretty sure she would never had done that.

Imagine if she'd grown up in this nice town with kind, stable David. Maybe she wouldn't have started stealing things to fill up an emptiness she couldn't explain. Maybe she wouldn't be graduating high school by the skin of her teeth.

"Burger up," Ruby said.

Emma was pulled from her thoughts by the biggest cheeseburger she'd ever seen. "Glory."

"Can I get you anything else?"

Mouth full, Emma said, "Chocolate milkshake?"

"On it."

Emma ate in silence for several minutes, thinking about nothing but how good the food tasted. She really hadn't had anything decent since she'd moved to Storybrooke. David, for all his charms, liked his food bland as notebook paper.

Emma would've suggested _she_ make them dinner each night, but he seemed so set in his rhythms, she'd have felt weird asking him to change for her.

"Everything good?" Ruby said when she brought the milkshake.

"It's like I died," Emma said, swallowing, "and went to heaven."

"That's what I like to hear." The girl sighed and leaned against the booth, seeming bored. She was tall and willowy, her dark eye makeup stark against her pale skin. "You know, your dad used to eat here every night."

Emma put her burger down. "Really?"

"Yeah. Till you came."

No wonder David's cooking sucked. He'd never done it before.

Emma never knew what to do with these moments: the ones that proved she didn't just have a dad, but a good one who cared about her deeply.

"You okay?" Ruby said.

Emma's eyes had filled with tears she struggled to swallow. "Fine."

"I'm so sorry!" Ruby sat down across from her, looking helpless. "What did I say?"

"It wasn't you. Really."

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah." Emma's voice grew steadier. "It's just…a weird time for me."

"Sure, sure." Ruby looked relieved that Emma wasn't going to cry. "Moving to a new town."

"Yeah. That."

"Where are you from, again?"

"Philly."

Ruby nodded slowly, looking Emma over. Emma had still been going for an "I don't give a shit" vibe, and so was wearing a ratty T-shirt and jean shorts, her hair somewhere between messy and plain scary.

"Is that a…laid back kind of city?" Ruby said.

Emma snorted with laughter. "I know, I'm a mess."

"I would disagree, but…yeah."

They both laughed. Emma couldn't help realizing it'd been a while since she had.

"You know," Emma said, "I was really rude to you on the first day of school. I'm sorry."

Ruby shrugged, lowering her voice. "After the way you talked to the class president, you could have spit in my face and I'd still have worshipped the ground you walked on."

"Ruby, can I ask you something?"

"Sure."

"What's up with Regina?"

Ruby's eyes widened. "Don'tsay her name!"

"What is she, Voldemort?"

"Kind of!"

"What the hell does that mean?"

Ruby looked around, then lowered her voice even more. "Listen, it's not necessarily Regina who's terrifying. It's her mother. She's the mayor, and—

"_Ruby_!" Granny's voice rang through the diner.

Ruby jumped up. "I have to get back to work." She leaned in close to Emma. "My advice is keep doing what you're doing. Pissing Regina off was cool and everything, but do it again, and…"

"And _what_?"

Ruby made a squeamish expression before loping off.

Why wouldn't anyone tell Emma what was going on?

* * *

That night, Emma felt slightly sentimental about the burnt grilled cheese sandwich David set in front of her.

She'd told him she'd already eaten, but he'd insisted she could still use a snack, and she hadn't argued.

He sat down across from her with a groan, in front of an identically burnt grilled cheese. "So, how was your day?"

It was one of the few things he seemed comfortable asking her. After two more weeks together, they were still beyond awkward with each other: him too nervous to really talk to her, her too angry and terrified to let him in.

There were lots of things Emma would've liked to ask him, if things weren't so weird between them. How did he and her mother meet? What was her mother like back then?

Why had he gone on living alone after all this time?

Now _there_ was a good question. David was so good, and stable, and, well, handsome, with a tan, square face and blond hair he kept short. If he wanted to be with someone, Emma was sure there would be takers.

Unable to ask any of these questions, Emma just said, "Okay."—which was her standard reply.

They chewed in silence. Like always, Emma noticed that he seemed like he wanted to say more, but kept swallowing it down.

"I have, um, something to ask you," she said.

David almost dropped his grilled cheese. "Sure. What is it?"

She swallowed. "Where's the public library?"

"Right across from Town Hall," he said, seemingly disappointed. "You haven't seen it?"

"What's it look like?"

"The building with the bell."

"David, all the buildings have bells."

He tilted his head. "You know, I've never noticed that."

"Well, it's true. I keep expecting to see a hunchback whose job it is to go around ringing them."

He laughed, hard. Emma couldn't keep from smiling. One thing about David: When he laughed, he really laughed, long and loud.

"Planning on getting some books?" he said.

"No." Emma lowered her gaze. "I'm, uh, doing some volunteer work."

"Oh. Well. That's great."

"It's sort of required. For my English class."

"Isn't that a new teacher? Miss…?"

"Blanchard," Emma muttered. "The class is a serious pain in the ass."

She slapped her hand over her mouth.

"Emma, it's okay," David said. "You can say ass. I can say ass. Let's all say ass."

It was Emma's turn to laugh. "David. Please."

"Okay, I'll stop."

They both laughed again, and Emma was amazed. It was almost like they were the real thing.

Things turned awkward again almost immediately, but there it was: one good moment.

Maybe it was a start.

* * *

Emma was pretty sure her brain wasn't functioning when she set out the next morning at 6:15.

The sun hadn't even risen. That was all Emma could think about as she trudged down David's street, shoulders slumped beneath her backpack straps. _I'm walking to the library before the crack of friggin' dawn. _

Miss Blanchard was insane. No, not insane. Cruel. Behind the kindness and grandmotherly cardigans was a woman who took pleasure in torturing students.

The library was a tan building with two stories and a wraparound porch, right across from Town Hall, like David had said. (There was also a bell tower, like David had said.) Despite her grogginess, Emma couldn't help paying special attention to Town Hall, an official-looking building with four white pillars. Ruby had said Regina's mother was the mayor, and that _she _was the scary one. What had she meant by that?

"Oh, good. You're here." Miss Blanchard smiled pleasantly as Emma came through the door. Cheerful as ever, the teacher was standing behind the front desk, jotting on a notepad.

The library was like everything in Storybrooke: tiny, not more than a few aisles of books and some couches. It was also empty, presumably because everyone else in town was asleep.

"M'mm," Emma said.

"You want coffee? There's some brewing in the office just here."

Emma found it and poured some into a Styrofoam cup. With the bitter taste in her mouth, she felt her brain start to turn on.

"So, uh, what am I doing here?" Emma said.

Miss Blanchard finished jotting and looked up, smiling again. She wore a blue print dress and a headband with a red flower on it, or in other words was ready for a tea party.

"Follow me, follow me," Miss Blanchard said, shuffling out from behind the desk.

Bereft of other choices, Emma followed her to a door in the back, which opened to a flight of creaky wooden steps. When they reached the top, Emma gasped.

"What…is this?"

There were books everywhere: in crates, in piles, teetering in stacks against the walls. The room was large and dusty, with large windows illuminating…the massive quantity of books.

"This," Miss Blanchard said, raising her hands, "is everything we've received so far for the book drive. The books have been coming in faster than I can process them, so I've just been dumping them here."

"But." Emma took a step forward, then stopped, then swallowed. "Storybrooke is tiny."

"That may be, but the town's book drive is famous. Every year, this library ships out books to schools in need all across the country. And it receives donations to do so from all across the country." Miss Blanchard walked further into the chaos, heaving a sigh. "The librarian is pushing seventy. He doesn't want to manage it all anymore. So I volunteered."

Emma just stared, dumbstruck. "But you just moved here," she mumbled.

"Well, I have a bit of experience with this kind of thing, from back in New York. I can handle it. I just need a little…help."

Emma gulped the last of her coffee. "You might need to start flunking some more students."

Miss Blanchard laughed. "I don't want to flunk any of my students. That's why you're here, remember?"

"Right. Grade resuscitation."

"_Grade resuscitation_," Miss Blanchard said slowly. "That's a fancy phrase, for someone who won't read my books."

"I've got a brain."

"Well," Miss Blanchard said, "let's put it to use, then."

Miss Blanchard explained that Emma was to take stacks of books downstairs to the computers, plug the titles into a database, and find out each book's reading level. Then, she had to mark each book with a colorful sticker based on her findings. The books had to be sorted according to reading level, so that Miss Blanchard would know which grade should receive which books.

Once Emma was done putting on stickers, she would carry the books to another room, where she would begin to sort them into boxes coded by sticker color.

"There's gotta be an app for this," Emma said as she hauled another pile down the rickety wooden stairs.

Miss Blanchard followed her with a stack of her own, breathing hard. "One would think."

"Some kind of book-scanny app. That's not a thing yet?"

"Not that I know of."

They dropped their stacks onto the table with simultaneous thuds.

"It just seems like this system could be more efficient," Emma said.

Miss Blanchard settled in front of her computer with a sigh. "If you can come up with a more efficient system, Emma, be my guest! But if there's anything I know, it's that things worth doing take work. Usually lots of it."

"But…_why _do you want to do this?" the girl blurted.

It didn't make sense to her. Here they were, sitting in front of ancient computers, putting pointless little stickers onto kids' books. And they were going to do it for hours this week. And next week. Miss Blanchard would keep doing it for who knows how many weeks after that.

Why would anyone _volunteer _for this stuff?

"Books are important, Emma," Miss Blanchard said, eyebrows crushing downwards. "Especially for children. They can take you to another world. Surely there's been a time in your life when you needed to be…transported elsewhere?"

Emma felt her face redden. Of course there'd been. "No book ever did that for me," she mumbled.

Miss Blanchard held up a finger. "_Yet_."

"You're holding out hope I'll become a reader?"

"Of course. Why wouldn't I?"

_Because I'm more likely to become a ninja turtle_, Emma thought, but decided not to say.

The two continued working together in silence, hauling books down the steps and punching the titles into the computers. Emma was amazed to see the room where Miss Blanchard was keeping the sorted boxes. There were already dozens of piles, each box the size of a miniature fridge. Miss Blanchard must have set to work on all this immediately after moving to Storybrooke.

The woman had conviction. This Emma had to admire.

She wondered what Miss Blanchard needed to be "transported elsewhere" from. She seemed so…prim and happy, the kind of person who made pies with the help of birds. Emma couldn't even imagine her in a state of angst.

"There a bathroom around here?" Emma said when 8 a.m. was nearing. She'd actually worked up a sweat, and wanted to rinse off before school. She was trying this new thing called "caring about her appearance," in the spirit of "increasing her contact with other humans."

Miss Blanchard pointed the way, and Emma went inside and splashed her face with cold water at one of the sinks. In the mirror, she looked…like David: blond and blue-eyed, with a well-defined jawline. People had always said Emma was a dead ringer for her mother—who was also blond, with the same wiry figure—but these days, Emma saw only her father staring back at her.

Miss Blanchard came into the bathroom and started straightening her headband. "Thanks for your help today."

Emma turned around and leaned back against the sink. "Thank _Red Badge of Courage._"

"Ah, yes. I forced you here."

"Craftily."

The woman sighed, smoothing her dress. "Desperate times call for desperate measures."

There was a pause.

"Thanks," Emma said. "You know, for not telling David—I mean, my dad—about the F."

Miss Blanchard turned to Emma and smiled. "You're welcome."

They left the library together, while Emma silently congratulated herself for several successful human interactions in a row.

* * *

When they got outside, Miss Blanchard asked Emma if she wanted a ride to school.

"That's okay," Emma told her. "It's only a couple blocks. And, well…"

The woman nodded firmly. "Showing up with a teacher."

"Weirdness."

"I understand."

"I wish I could walk to school in the morning," Miss Blanchard said as they headed for the curb, where the teacher's red Jeep was parked, "but my house is a few miles out of town. Near the toll bridge."

"Ah." Emma was ready to stop fraternizing with her English teacher.

The woman told her goodbye before getting in her car and pulling away.

Emma sighed. Almost two months in Storybrooke and the only person she'd hung out with was her English teacher. For extra credit.

_And who's fault is that? _she reminded herself.

She started toward the school, eyes burning from lack of sleep. But when she glanced up at Town Hall, she stopped.

"Graham?"

He was standing on the sidewalk in front of the pillared building, arms stiff at his sides. He looked…odd: eyes glassy, expression blank.

She trotted across the street. "Graham?"

"_Huh_?" He jolted when she grabbed his shoulder, almost knocking her over.

"Woah!" she said.

"Emma." He looked at her with a confused expression. "What…where have you been?"

"Excuse me?"

"I haven't…seen you in a while."

"Cause those eight hours we spend in the same room every day don't count."

He squinted at her. "It's so weird. I don't remember seeing you."

"Are you okay? You're acting weird." She stiffened. "Are you high?"

"Not recently_._" He seemed to be coming around, the fuzzy look going out of his eyes. He stared hard at Emma's face. "You've really been in school these last few weeks?"

"Yeah_._ Guess my Spanish presentation was shittier than I thought."

"I don't…remember." He scratched his head with both hands and started walking away.

"Hey, where are you going?" Emma trotted after him, scared he was too unstable to be left alone.

"I was supposed to meet Regina here."

Emma loped alongside him. "So walking away from here is the right thing to do?"

He whirled to face her, grabbing her shoulders. "I don't know what's happening right now, okay?"

She punched him, hard, in the face.

* * *

It was more of a reflex than anything else. A guy having some kind of "episode" had put his hands on her, and she'd felt threatened. And when she felt threatened, she fought.

He was lying on the ground, hand clutched to his eye. Emma was leaning over him.

"You gonna live?" she said.

He sat up, blades of grass falling away from his wavy brown hair. A shiner was already forming above his right eye. "Yeah." He touched the shiner tenderly. "Your right hook seems suspiciously practiced."

"I admit it wasn't my first."

"Remind me never to piss you off."

She smiled, relieved he was talking normal again. "Good luck with that."

She held out her hands and pulled him up. He wore a green button-up shirt and jeans, along with his usual hiking boots, which Emma noticed were caked with mud.

He studied her face. "It's the strangest thing, but since we…met, I don't remember seeing you in class. Like, at all."

"Well, I've been there."

"_Weird._"

In Emma's mind, two words rang out: _She's dangerous. _

Why did she suspect Regina's hand in this?

Oh God, the loneliness really had driven Emma to Loonyville. How could Regina have caused Graham not to notice Emma for two weeks?

But Emma had to admit, it would work very much in Regina's favor for Emma to be invisible to Graham. You couldn't kiss someone you couldn't see, right?

"This is nutty," Emma said. "Let's go to class."

Graham gave a quick nod, and they set out.

"I wonder why Regina never came and met me," Graham said. "She always does."

"Maybe she got held up pulling the stick out of her ass."

"That _would _take time."

They walked in silence, until the school bell started ringing. On the lawn in front, students were picking up their bags and heading inside.

"If you don't like her," Emma said, "why are you with her?"

Graham stopped, puckering his forehead. Emma noticed that the green of his shirt matched his eyes exactly.

"I don't know," he said. "I just feel like I have to be."

"So when you kissed _me_ two weeks ago?"

"Regina and I had been arguing."

Emma nodded, and they started walking again.

"You want some advice?" she said.

"Sure."

"Figure out if you want to be with her or not. And if you don't, grow some balls and break up with her." She faced him. "Because doing stuff with girls you don't want to be with, that's about as low as you can get."

She stalked off, wishing she could punch him again.

* * *

Guys using her. That's what Emma was thinking about for the rest of the school day, instead of, say, the various subjects being taught her.

It'd happened before. When she was fifteen, she'd started seeing this guy from homeroom, Ethan. She hangs out with Ethan. She smokes on the fire escape with Ethan. Ethan even saves up money from waiting tables to take her out to a fancy Italian restaurant. Six months, this goes on. Then, she goes all the way with him and _poof_, he's gone.

Guys using her. It was on the somewhat lengthy list of things Emma absolutely, positively could not stand.

Ethan had spread rumors about her, too. Called her the kinds of names girls get slapped with.

She'd tried to talk to her mother about it, but that was one of her mother's bad times, when the woman was either working or drinking. Emma had gone to Macy's and stolen a coffee maker—a goddam coffee maker—taken it home, and thrown it off the roof of their apartment building.

Angst is mysterious, sometimes.

"Emma."

It was Miss Blanchard, standing in front of Emma's desk, where Emma had apparently dazed off. The classroom was empty. It seemed she'd been so absorbed in her thoughts, she hadn't even noticed the day had ended.

"Customarily, students leave after the last bell." The teacher studied her. "You okay?"

"Yeah. Sorry." Emma scrambled to gather her belongings. "Tired."

"I suppose I'm responsible for that."

Emma shook her head. "Boys."

Miss Blanchard lifted an eyebrow. "Make you tired?"

"Shit on you if you're not careful." She slapped her hand over her mouth. "Jeez, I'm an idiot."

Miss Blanchard held up a palm. "It's okay. Class is technically over."

Emma smiled pathetically, heading toward the door. "Thanks."

"Plus," Miss Blanchard said, "you're totally right."

Vaguely scandalized, Emma laughed and kept walking.

Ruby was waiting outside the building, arms clutched tightly around her chest.

"There you are!" Ruby said. "Stay in there any longer and you'd have made me late for work."

"You're waiting for me because…?"

"This."

She thrust a small piece of paper at Emma.

"So last night, I'm doing the waitress thing when Regina comes in," Ruby said quickly. "The whole time she's sitting there—alone, mind you—she's staring at this, looking like she's gonna blow. I couldn't see what it was, and frankly I wasn't about to try—

"I don't understand."

It was a picture of Regina and Emma. Except it wasn't them. It was a woman who looked like Regina—dark hair, olive skin, big bleachy smile—with her arm aroundEmma's mother, who was grinning like the world was only rainbows and always would be.

"Regina dropped it on her way out," Ruby said. "I thought you'd want to see it. She looked like she was in some kind of rage over it—

"Regina's mother and my mother."

"Were friends. Apparently."

Emma shook her head. "Too weird."

She thought about the first day of school, when Regina had marched right up to her. _You must be Emma_.

"What's…what's that?" Emma pointed to a small X that looked like it'd been scratched into the photo with a knife. Right over her mother's chest.

"That's why I needed to show you this," Ruby said. "Listen. Emma. You need to make sure your mother's okay."

"What are you talking about?"

"The mayor is _dangerous._"

"You're killing me with this."

Ruby shook her head. "I need to talk to you."

"Isn't that what we're doing right now?"

Ruby grabbed Emma's phone out of the pocket of her jeans.

"Hey!" Emma said.

"I'm giving you my number. I'll text you this weekend, and we'll talk about all this somewhere private."

"And the problem with here and now is…?"

"We _can't._"

"The weirdness of this town. I can't even."

Ruby handed her back her phone, a worried look on her face. "Call your mother. Make sure she…stays put for a while."

Emma couldn't stop from snorting. "This is insane."

"Just…trust me."

With one last look of anxiety, Ruby scurried off, pulling her hair into a ponytail as she went. She turned around and called, "We'll order pizza!"

Emma shook her head, sighed, lit a cigarette, and wondered what her life was coming to.

In her palm, the photo seemed heavier than it ought to. What bothered her most about it was not the X over her mother, but that Emma had never seen her so happy.

**Are you pleased/intrigued/mortified/shocked/repulsed?! These are feelings you can express to me by clicking the review button. It shouts your name!**


	3. Chapter 3

**Beloved story fans! My extreme thanks to everyone who's reviewed/favorited/otherwise expressed positivity in response to this angst-ridden tale of mine. THANK YOU! Your feedback is like buttery mashed potatoes to my soul. **

**Big-time apologies for taking so long to produce this much shorter excuse for a chapter… Long story short, life transitions abound, currently. I 1.) moved 2.) went on vacation 3.) started my first full-time job. So the writing's gotten pushed out of my schedule a bit, but I'm gradually getting back in full-swing!**

**This one goes out to the folks who splashed their thoughts on my review page...**

Chapter 3

A few days later, Emma woke feeling like she'd been smacked in the head with a brick.

She let out a groan as she fumbled for her alarm clock. It was Friday, or slave-in-the-library-at-dawn day.

She trudged into the bathroom, where the mirror revealed a frightening version of herself: skin pale, eyes puffy, lips cracked.

Yep, she was sick.

David was downstairs reading the newspaper when she went down to look for some cold medicine. She'd managed to get dressed, and had scrubbed her face with cold water, but she knew she still looked like death.

"What are you looking for?" David said.

Her back to him, Emma dug through the kitchen cabinet. "Medicine."

"Everything okay?"

Sighing, Emma turned around.

David choked on his orange juice. "_Emma._"

"It's just a cold."

"You look half-dead. Go back to bed."

"David—

"I mean it."

The hardness in his tone left no room for objections. Emma stood frozen with shock.

"I'm _fine,_" she said.

She turned around and started digging through the cabinet again. Within seconds, David's hand was on her shoulder, pushing her gently aside. He reached to the top shelf and pulled down a box of cold medicine.

She grabbed for it. "Thanks."

He lifted it high above her head. "I'll bring it to you. In bed."

Emma stared at him incredulously. Her father, a full-grown man, was using the argument technique of holding something too high for her to reach.

"David." Emma's voice cracked in her sore throat. "Give me the medicine."

"Emma, I'm the sheriff of this town. That means you have to do what I say. Now go…to…_bed_."

Emma continued staring at him for several seconds, before whipping around and stomping back up the stairs. When she collapsed onto her bed, she had to admit her head was pounding, but that was no excuse for David's ridiculous behavior.

No one bossed her around like that. Not her mother. Not anyone.

Minutes later, David came into the room with a glass of water and a steaming mug. Emma was lying on top of her covers, arms crossed over her chest.

David held out two small red pills, which Emma took from him with a scowl.

"This is tea." David held the mug out to her, but set it on her bedside table when he saw the look on her face. "Um, for your throat. You sound like a frog."

Emma said nothing.

He let out a sigh, and when he spoke again his hard tone was gone, replaced by the gentle one Emma had grown familiar with.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I just…care about you. It's all right if you're mad at me. But you're not going to school today."

He turned and walked out of the room. Moments later, Emma heard him on the phone, telling the school's office she would be home sick today.

She got up and climbed out the window.

* * *

It was stupid, really. Emma hated school. She hated going to the library and volunteering with Miss Blanchard. She hated almost everything about Storybrooke, really.

So she should have jumped at the chance to spend a whole Friday chilling in bed, watching TV and eating David's mint chocolate chip.

Especially since she felt like crap.

But something in her refused to let David tell her what to do. He wasn't…_qualified _to do that. He wasn'ther parent.

Okay, technically he was, legally and genetically. But for seventeen years, he wasn't around, and Emma was stuck fending for herself a lot of the time. You couldn't just step in when a person was all grown up and start acting like you'd been there all along.

So, no, she would not stay at home today, for the simple reason that David had told her to. Maybe that was immature, but she'd made up her mind.

She'd made up her aching, congested mind.

"Oh my goodness," Miss Blanchard said when Emma entered the library. She'd made it there, at least. There'd been a few times during the half-mile walk when she'd thought she was going to have to call it a day in somebody's flower bush.

"Hi, Miss Blanchard," Emma said dopily, dropping into one of the armchairs.

The woman rushed over, both hands on her face. "You look terrible!"

"Thanks."

"I mean it," the woman said. "You look like you're dying. What are you doing here like this?"

"Defying my father."

"What?"

Emma shook her head, attempting to get up.

"Oh no you don't." Miss Blanchard pushed her back into the chair. "I'm calling the sheriff and getting him to pick you up."

"Noooo," Emma moaned. "He's being stupid."

Miss Blanchard put her hands on her hips. "Oh, _he's _being stupid?"

"Yes."

"What's your father's number?"

Emma leaned back and shut her eyes, which burned. "How am I supposed to know?"

"Give me your cell phone."

"Forgot it."

"Emma Swan, if you think I'm letting you stay in this library like this, you've got another thing—

The sound of sirens erupted outside the window, and Emma opened her eyes to see the sheriff striding across the parking lot, a deep frown on his face.

"For Pete's sake," Emma said.

David came through the doors and immediately locked eyes with Emma, the frown dissolving into a look of relief. Then he saw Miss Blanchard, and his expression…changed a little.

"I—I came to get my daughter," he said, removing his wide-brimmed sheriff's hat with his mouth open.

Miss Blanchard shook his hand, smiling. She wore magenta pants with a cream-colored tunic, her dark hair swept to the side. "I'm so sorry, Sheriff Nolan. I don't know what compelled her to come here like this."

"No, um, not your fault."

He kept holding her hand, and she cleared her throat.

"_Emma_,_" _David said.

Emma struggled to her feet, then flopped back down again. "Incapacitated."

David came over and helped her up, slinging his arm under her shoulders for support. He kept his arm around her as they crossed the library. His scent, she noticed for the first time, was a mixture of coconut and leather.

They paused at the exit.

"Thanks," he said to Miss Blanchard. "For, um—

"No problem," Miss Blanchard said.

There was a moment of silence, heavy with tension.

"Oh, jeez," Emma muttered.

"Bye!" David said a little too loudly.

"Get better, Emma!" Miss Blanchard called.

David helped Emma into the passenger side, giving her a look like she was in big trouble. But before he'd gotten into the driver's side, she'd fallen fast asleep.

* * *

At some point, Emma deluded herself into believing it'd been _her_ idea to stay home from school, and so let David take care of her.

She would choose to forget that he'd come for her in the cruiser, sirens howling.

"I didn't know what kind of soup you liked," David said.

He came into Emma's bedroom with a tray, on top of which was a bowl and another mug, both steaming. Throughout the day, he'd given her more tea than any human could reasonably consume. "So I got chicken and stars."

Emma roused herself from the congested stupor she'd been in while David went to the grocery store. Though he'd taken the day off, he still wore his tan sheriff's pants and button-up shirt, which made his meticulous caregiving seem very official.

"Glad you woke me up," Emma murmured as she propped herself up on her pillows. "I was having this nightmare about a guy force-feeding me tea."

"Ha ha ha." David set the tray on Emma's stomach. "_Eat_."

Emma picked up the spoon and swirled it around in the soup, while David stood by, watching her with his arms crossed over his chest. Finally, she sighed and brought the spoon to her lips.

"Happy?" she said.

"Yep."

She kept eating, having forgotten how good chicken and stars was. When was the last time someone doted on her like this?

David was annoying. Yes. But it was kind of nice.

"I brought you this, too." He reached into a shopping bag slung over his arm.

Emma lifted an eyebrow. "_Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs_?_"_

"Yeah. Um. Storybrooke's grocery store doesn't have much of a DVD selection. I'm assuming you've seen it?"

"No, actually."

"Really?"

"No. I mean, Mom was never big on Disney."

The sentence hung in the air. The two never talked about Emma's mother. It was in some unwritten rulebook about surviving their unusual domestic situation.

David cleared his throat, breaking eye contact with Emma. "That's weird. She always liked Disney. When I knew her."

"She did?"

"Yeah."

"Well." Emma dropped her spoon with a clang. "Guess she lost her taste for happy endings."

"I guess so."

There was more silence, while questions rushed to Emma's mind. What had _happened _between her parents? Why had her mother become…her mother: the erratic, self-harming, unhappy person Emma knew her to be?

"Let's watch the movie," Emma said.

David's eyes brightened. "Yeah?"

"Yeah."

Emma resolved to be someone who did not deny herself happy endings.

* * *

"This movie is deranged," she said.

She was lying on the couch, bundled in several blankets, a box of tissues in her lap and several individual ones crumpled around her.

"Deranged?" Her father sat in the small space between Emma's feet and the end of the couch.

"Yes."

"I happen to like this movie."

"It's completely degrading to women. The fact that the queen's all, 'Gotta be the fairest or it's not worth existing' says enough. And the dwarfs take Snow White in because she can _cook _and _clean_? All I'm saying is the thing could use some serious rewriting."

David shrugged. On the screen, Snow White was getting poisoned by the apple.

"You take no issues with the prince?" he said.

"Who cares about him? Tell me one trait he has, other than being handsome and rich."

"He's charming?"

"Not _really_."

They continued watching. Despite herself, Emma was a little entranced. She hadn't seen many Disney movies, but understood their popularity: There was something about the guaranteed triumph of good over evil.

If only real life were like that.

"Oh, jeez," Emma said. "Now it's Prince Charming to the rescue."

"Isn't that a good thing?"

"He's kissing a _corpse_._" _

"She's just sleeping."

"He doesn't know that!"

The doorbell rang, and David rose to get it. A minute later, he reappeared. "Emma, you have a visitor."

Regina appeared with an armload of papers. She wore a smooth black shirt made of some expensive-looking material and dark jeans, leather boots rising to her knees. Her expression was one of severe annoyance.

"I brought you the work you need to make up," she said, walking over and dumping the materials on Emma's lap.

Emma's eyes were wide with shock. Regina looked extremely weird in her and David's little house, with her fancy clothes and shiny hair.

Emma was wearing, she realized unhappily, an oversized T-shirt and ratty pajama pants. Not to mention the fluids she could feel dripping out of her nose.

"You didn't have to," Emma grumbled.

"I'm the class president."

"We've established that."

"It's one of my duties."

"Oh." Emma tried to gather up the papers that'd fallen sloppily all over her. "How nice of you."

Regina smiled falsely. "Hmm."

David watched this exchange from the doorway, head tilted.

"How's your mom, Regina?" he said.

Regina turned to face him, her arms wrapped around her chest. "She's herself."

"She's the mayor, right?" Emma said.

Regina faced Emma with a flat expression. "Correct."

"Is that what you wanna be someday? The mayor?" Emma said.

"_No._ I should be going."

"You don't want to stay for dinner?" David said. "I was about to defrost some chicken tenders."

"That's very kind," Regina said, though it sounded more like _No way in hell_. "But my mother is expecting me."

"Okay. Well. Thanks for bringing Emma's papers over."

"And so cheerfully, too," Emma said.

Regina gave another false smile. "Anything for you."

David walked her to the door, which shut behind Regina with an ominous click.

He came back rubbing his arms. "Is it just me, is there a chill in here all of a sudden?"

"Isn't she a delight?"

"She's something."

"She hates me," Emma said.

"Come on, I'm sure that's not..." He stopped. "Okay. It did kind of seem like that."

"David…" Emma said, pulling at her courage. "Why?"

"Why what?"

"Why does Regina hate me?"

David stared at Emma for a long moment, then lowered his eyes. "I—I'm not sure."

"Were my mom and Regina's mom…friends?"

David's forehead grew troubled. "Yes."

"What _happened_?"

"To be honest, I'm not really sure." He turned away from her, walking to the far side of the room. There was a heaviness to his steps that Emma couldn't help noticing.

"What do you mean?"

"Your mother never talked to me about it, Emma. They had some kind of fight and right after…" He turned around and met her eyes, his blue ones full of pain. "Right after, your mother left. She never even told me she was going."

Before she could think about it, Emma was on her feet and lurching unsteadily toward her father. When she reached him, she hugged him tightly, shocked at herself.

If David was shocked, he didn't act like it; he closed his arms around her just as tightly.

Okay, more tightly.

"Crushing my ribs," Emma grunted.

"Sorry."

He released her, and she shuffled awkwardly back to the couch.

She felt only more desperate to know what had happened between her mother and Regina's.

* * *

Emma went to bed early that night, after watching TV with David for the rest of the afternoon. They didn't talk much. David seemed almost physically wounded by their conversation about Emma's mother, even clutching at his heart every so often.

Emma wondered if he still loved her mother, and if that was why the conversation had been so painful. Or if his pain stemmed from somewhere else.

Basically, she wanted to scream, "What the hell is going on?" at the top of her lungs, over and over, preferably while breaking something.

When she woke the next morning, her nose felt more like a nose and less like a leaky faucet, and there was a pleasant absence of throbbing pain in her head. She quickly decided her options were getting out of the house or exploding from cabin fever, and so went with getting out of the house. She threw on a pair of baggy jeans and a gray tank top, then headed downstairs.

David was missing from his usual place at the table. Instead, there was a note on a yellow sticky pad: "_Went to buy more tea. Be back in a jiff. Love David._"

Emma laughed, more than terrified at the idea of more tea, before she was overcome with emotion. "_Love_ _David_." They'd spent the day together yesterday, and it had been…good. She had enjoyed herself. Part of her was ecstatic, while another—the harder, colder part—was angry. Why had she allowed things to get this far? Hadn't she decided to close herself off from him?

She grabbed a granola bar from the cookie jar and headed out.

It was a gray day, slightly cool, sheets of gray clouds hanging low in the sky. She ran her hands up and down her arms as she loped down the long driveway, trying to gauge the possibility of rain. Where would she go? She didn't necessarily feel like a stroll down Main Street.

"Emma."

She leaped about a foot.

"Shit, Graham. Are you trying to break the world record for creepiness?"

He was standing at the foot of the driveway in his usual jeans and hiking boots, except his shirt was covered by a camouflage vest. A broad grin was plastered across his face.

"I was hoping I'd run into you," he said.

"It's not running into someone if you wait outside their house. That's actually called stalking."

"Relax. I was just walking by on the way to the woods."

That's when Emma noticed it: the gun slung across his back.

"Off to go murder some perfectly innocent animal that never did anything to you?" She pushed past him.

He walked with her. "Hey, wait."

"You know, Regina probably wouldn't be a fan of you following me."

"I don't care what she thinks."

"That's new."

"I'm going to break up with her."

Emma stopped.

"I thought about what you said," he said. "It's not right to be with her if I don't love her. And I don't."

She sighed, rubbing at her temples. "What do you want, a congratulations?"

"Maybe some acknowledgement that I'm doing the right thing."

"Fine. You're doing the right thing."

She pushed past him again, but he trotted after her.

"Graham, what do you want from me?"

"Maybe I…wanted to see you again."

"If you think I'm at all interested in guys on the rebound, you'd be wrong."

"Funny, you didn't seem so selective a few weeks ago."

Emma glared at him. "I was lonely."

"Aren't you still?"

She pulled in a breath and released it slowly. In the gray light of the sky, Graham's eyes were a startling green.

"It's not your problem," she said.

"Please. I need to spend time with you."

"_Need_?"

"I can't explain it. I was in a fog until you came. For months…it was like I was sleepwalking or something. But when I'm around you, everything is clear. _Please_."

Emma stared at him, perplexed. His tone was truly desperate, and she couldn't help taking him seriously.

She also couldn't help illogically, irrationally, and _totally_ suspecting Regina.

"Fine," she said. "I'll go with you."

* * *

It was a lot of sitting around, but Emma found she was enjoying the wet, fresh feel of the woods.

Somehow, she'd always known her true roots weren't in the city, but somewhere with more…actual roots. Sure, she'd appreciated the city's noise and the way you could get lost in it, but there was something in her that longed for the peace of leaves and dirt and branches.

Shit, what was happening to her?

She was kneeling beside Graham in some tall grass, her jeans soaked and muddy. He crouched beside her. She swore she hadn't seem him move, let alone breathe, in 45 minutes. It was starting to disturb her.

"Shouldn't your eyes at least be open?" Emma said.

"Shhh."

"I'm just saying, how do you expect to catch anything when you're sitting here with your eyes closed?"

"I'm waiting. Hush."

"_Hush_?"

"You heard me."

Emma sighed and fell back on her haunches, legs aching from kneeling for so long. The sky hadn't brightened at all since they'd gone tracking into the woods, which weren't a half a mile from Emma's house. (If she got out more, maybe she'd have known this.) The clouds hung so low Emma swore she could taste their moist earthiness.

"Graham?" she hissed.

"Emma, please."

"Does Regina ever…say anything about me?"

"Beyond cursing the day you were born?"

"She does that?"

Graham turned to her, nostrils flaring. "Since it's clear you're not going to be quiet until we have a conversation, what exactly do you want to know?"

"Why everyone…_spazzes out _about her."

"Spazzes out?"

"You know what I mean. People are scared of her. Ruby and Belle—

"Live in their own little world." Graham held Emma in a firm gaze. "Look, Regina is a lot of things, but she's not scary. She just has issues."

"Clearly. But Ruby showed me this photo—

"Ruby and Regina _do not _get along, okay? Ruby and me dated, once upon a time. As you know, Regina doesn't play well with competition—

"They're terrified of her, Graham. Ruby won't even say her name."

Graham rolled his eyes. "See, this is why I hate this town. Regina is human, you know. People treat her like she can't get hurt, but anyone would get hurt if those kind of rumors went around about them."

"What rumors?"

He sighed. "Look, if I tell you this, it's because I don't want you to hear it from someone else and think it's true. The guy died of natural causes—

"_Died_?"

"The English teacher Miss Blanchard replaced. The rumor that people won't stop spreading—the ridiculous rumor—is that Regina and her mom killed him."

**I don't know about you guys, but I'm a total sucker for those fanfics about characters getting colds, so I had to have a fluffy section like that in here somewhere. **

**Your kudos/complaints/jubilations/philosophies about the afterlife can kindly present themselves in my review section, please :)**


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